Baseball Week Haarlem: breeding ground for MLB talent

We regularly get asked as an organization: how strong are the teams participating in Baseball Week?

Our starting point is and always will be: as strong as possible and from multiple continents. This has worked well in past editions. To give an example, the aim is always to get a good team on the field on behalf of the US, the birthplace of baseball, in Haarlem. MLB teams are unfeasible; the league is not interrupted there. So the top-level pros are not coming. Thanks to a fine relationship with USA Baseball, another team full of potential future stars did come to the Netherlands in 2022. The team consisted of third- and fourth-year college players, almost all of whom were available for the MLB Draft scheduled a few weeks after the tournament.

College? Draft? A brief interlude: in the US, all amateur sports go through high schools and universities; amateur associations as in the Netherlands do not exist. The only way to turn pro is to be scouted by a pro organization. You can be drafted as early as high school, but if you decide to go to college, you usually play two or three years of college baseball before you go “pro” and make yourself available for the draft.

The MLB organization that had the worst win/loss percentage in the previous year gets first pick each year. Then the second worst team gets to choose, etc. This is how all organizations choose players, dozens of rounds. When a player is chosen by a club, signing money is negotiated. First-rounders get the biggest bonus and so it slowly runs out. After that, you are owned by the club for six years and, in addition to your signing bonus, receive a salary starting at $40,000 a year.

One of Team USA’s pitchers in Haarlem in 2022 was Paul Skenes (pictured). He was drafted first last June, by the Pittsburgh Pirates. He received a bonus of $9.2 million. The No. 2 seed in the first round, outfielder Dylan Crews (Washington Nationals, bonus $9 million), was also active in Haarlem a few weeks before.

The table below lists nine players featured in 2022 Haarlem who were drafted in the first round:

So these were the biggest talents, who are expected to play in the Majors in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, in Haarlem, we have already seen a huge number of later superstars in their younger years take the stage; from Mark Prior (2000) to Stephen Strasburg (2008) and from Trea Turner (2012) to Alex Bregman (2014). The list is long and only getting longer; it is only a matter of time before we see the first players from HWH 2022 in the Majors. For some, it may even be time next season!

Another Team USA is coming to Haarlem in 2024, this time in the form of an NJCAA squad; one level younger than the men we have seen on the field in recent years, but certainly immensely talented as well.

Visitors to Baseball Week 2024 are sure to enjoy top baseball again, played by top talents and experienced pros, in different styles: Asian, American and European.